A Handy List of Ludicrous Anti-Abortion Legislation

For your reference. I’ll try to update this as needed. Read the linked articles for more information about these bills and why they are so harmful.

  • Oklahoma State Bill 1433–defines a fertilized egg as a “person” and seeks to extend human rights to said “persons”; conflicts with Roe v. Wade.
  • Georgia House Bill 954–bans all abortions after 20 weeks, even in cases of rape and incest, unless the woman’s life or health was threatened (this last exception was only added later); also conflicts with Roe v. Wade; this is the bill that a George state rep defended by comparing women to lifestock.
  • Mississippi House Bill 1390–would close the state’s last remaining abortion clinic on a technicality to “prevent back-room abortions.”
  • Arizona House Bill 2036–bans all abortions after 20 weeks because, according to lawmakers, that’s when fetuses begin to feel pain (which is false); conflicts with Roe v. Wade; defines fetal age as beginning at fertilization–up to two weeks before a woman’s last period, which is how fetal age is usually calculated. So really, it’s after 18 weeks, not after 20 weeks like the other dumb bills.
  • Mississippi Senate Bill 2771would make all abortions performed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected illegal; doctors who perform such abortions could serve up to 30 years in prison. Women seeking abortions would be forced to undergo an invasive transvaginal ultrasound to check for a heartbeat, which can be detected just 6 weeks after gestation.
  • Alabama Senate Bill 12–would have mandated all women seeking abortions, even victims of rape and incest, to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and view the image. Why? To help “a mother to understand that a live baby is inside her body.”
  • Virginia House Bill 62–slashes state funding for low-income women who are pregnant with complications and need abortions.
  • Arizona Senate Bill 1359–allows doctors to withhold information from pregnant women that may cause them to seek an abortion (such as fetal abnormalities) by shielding them from potential lawsuits.
  • Kansas House Bill 2598–same as above, plus a bunch of other restrictions for good measure.
  • H.R. 2299–would prevent women under 18 from crossing state lines to get an abortion without their parents’ consent.
  • Tennessee House Bill 3808–would create an online list of the names and addresses of all abortion doctors. Not insignificant given the recent bombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin.

One note–I’ve chosen not to attempt to find updated information on how these bills did in HRs and Senates, first of all because that would take all of my time, and second because that’s not the point. Some of these bills passed, some of them are still being deliberated. Point is, none of them should’ve made it onto the floor to begin with.

Another note–I stopped writing this post not because I was unable to find any more bills, but because I just got tired and sad from looking at them.

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A Handy List of Ludicrous Anti-Abortion Legislation
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12 thoughts on “A Handy List of Ludicrous Anti-Abortion Legislation

  1. 1

    People are… Frustrating. As I’ve said before, I am perplexed by all these attempts to drastically reduce access to abortion, in conjunction with attempts to limit access to contraception. The result it seems they’re shooting for is to have as many children as possible born, which hardly seems to be a national priority at the moment. We’ve got enough people. Hell, we’ve got more than enough people, and unless someone’s providing projections of how we’re going to have jobs for all these extra people in twenty five years, then limiting contraception and abortion access seems counterproductive.

    1. 1.1

      Note that these are the same people who seem to believe that we can do whatever we want to this planet and it will magically continue to support our growing numbers, despite pollution, global warming, etc.

      Oops, I forgot, those don’t actually exist.

      1. I have literally heard someone say, out-loud, straight-up “It doesn’t matter if we destroy this planet, because god is going to make another one.”

        On a slightly separate, but related, note, when I was watching “The Purity Myth,” there was one woman involved in this anti-choice, anti-contraception movement who, on national television, tried to counter arguments of (see above) overpopulation, climate change, unemployment, etc. with “I just love babies. I think we should all have more babies in our lives!” Which makes it all the worse and creepier, as some of these folks seem to be approaching children not as members of society, but as adorable little toys and accessories.

          1. These people are dangerously reckless. Making it all the more frustrating is that the two or three children that I and others like me will have starting around the age of thirty will be outnumbered by the four to twelve children they will have starting at around twenty.

  2. 3

    Just as a quick correction, AZ HB 2036 calculates gestational age “as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman,” which is approximately two weeks before fertilization rather than the other way around. It is, however, consistent with the ways gestational age is determined by health care providers generally. It is a shit law for a whole multitude of reasons, but the way it calculates gestational age is not the problem.

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